CUBA NEWS
March 8, 2004

Embargo hurts U.S. economy, Cubans

By John B. Quigley. Posted on Sat, Mar. 06, 2004 in The Miami Herald.

One afternoon in 1984, I was offered a look through a telescope aimed at Miami. I was in the multistory building in Havana that President Dwight Eisenhower built as a U.S. embassy. Eisenhower broke diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961, and the building remained nearly empty.

To carry on communication with Cuba, while officially not being in touch, the United States was represented by Switzerland, with U.S. officials working under Switzerland's auspices as the ''U.S. Interests Section'' of the Swiss Embassy in Havana.

Similarly, Cuba arranged to be represented through Czechoslovakia. In the Czech Embassy in Washington, Cubans officials operated as the "Cuban Interests Section.''

In Havana, the upshot of this elaborate diplomatic pas de deux was that only one floor of the tall building built by Eisenhower was occupied. An upper floor, its window allowed the telescope to see Florida on a clear day.

We did have communication with Cuba, via the ''interests'' sections. When President Reagan sent troops into Grenada in 1983, where a Cuban construction team was building an airport, the communications were intense.

The United States needs to be dealing with Cuba in a more comprehensive fashion. We have been trying to bring down Cuba's government for 40 years. Eisenhower set in motion a military plan to overthrow Cuba's government. But the plan, carried through by President John Kennedy, failed, famously and disastrously, at the Bay of Pigs. From that time, our effort has been to bring Cuba down by economic pressure, via a trade embargo.

That approach, too, has failed. We have hurt Cuba economically. A small country, it is more dependent on the United States than we are on it. It needs the United States as an export market.

At the same time, we have shot ourselves in the foot because most other countries trade with Cuba. We keep our own businesses from doing so, and the void is filled by others.

Our unsuccessful effort to isolate Cuba causes ''collateral damage'' in our foreign relations. Just now it is threatening our relations with the hemisphere. To placate Cuban-Americans who want a hard line toward Cuba, President Bush appointed Roger Noriega, an ex-aide to Sen. Jesse Helms, as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.

Towing the hard line

Last month Noriega criticized Argentina's new government for re-establishing full diplomatic relations with Cuba. Fidel Castro attended the inauguration in Buenos Aires last spring of President Néstor Kirchner, and Argentina's foreign minister visited Cuba a few months later.

In a speech in January to the Council of the Americas in New York, Noriega decried what he called ''a certain leftward drift'' in Argentina's foreign policy.

Argentine officials reacted. A Cabinet minister called Noriega's remarks ''those of an insolent individual.'' Viewing Noriega as interfering in Argentina's domestic affairs, President Kirchner said, "We are a country with dignity.''

Our hard line on Cuba puts us at odds with regional actors such as Argentina whose cooperation we need on a variety of issues. Our posture also puts us at odds with our European allies.

Europeans trade with Cuba. U.S. business circles would like to do the same. The Cuban-American community is divided on the embargo, as many would like to see normalized relations, in particular so that they could maintain better contact with relatives in Cuba.

The argument for the embargo is that if change is brought to Cuba, the Cuban people will be better off. Yet for 40 years the embargo has only made life harder on the island. We are hurting the Cubans and ourselves.

John B. Quigley is a professor of law at Ohio State University's Michael E. Moritz College of Law.


 


PRINTER FRIENDLY

News from Cuba
by e-mail

 



PRENSAS
Independiente
Internacional
Gubernamental
IDIOMAS
Inglés
Francés
Español
SOCIEDAD CIVIL
Cooperativas Agrícolas
Movimiento Sindical
Bibliotecas
DEL LECTOR
Cartas
Opinión
BUSQUEDAS
Archivos
Documentos
Enlaces
CULTURA
Artes Plásticas
El Niño del Pífano
Octavillas sobre La Habana
Fotos de Cuba
CUBANET
Semanario
Quiénes Somos
Informe Anual
Correo Eléctronico

DONATIONS

In Association with Amazon.com
Search:

Keywords:

CUBANET
145 Madeira Ave, Suite 207
Coral Gables, FL 33134
(305) 774-1887

CONTACT
Journalists
Editors
Webmaster